Atieh is a PhD student in design at the North Carolina State University. Before starting her doctorate, she worked for several years as a licensed architect. Her research interests mainly revolve around the spatial perception of built environment and the formation of place image. In her current research, she is studying the influence of physical and non-physical attributes of different places on the place images that are being formed in the user’s mind as well as the behavioral choices and decisions the users make based on those place images. Currently, she is primary focused on studying these relationships in different urban settings, particularly in central urban environments of developing cities.